Yuma Regional Medical Center Unveils ‘Art Heals’ Exhibit

YUMA, Ariz. – The Yuma Regional Medical Center knows the healing power of art, and Friday they launched the “Art Heals” exhibit at the Yuma Regional Medical Cancer Center.

“Diagnosis, treatment, and remission—all here—and this reflects that,” shares cancer survivor Teri Ingram as she motions toward her photograph. She is one of the artists whose work is now on display at the new exhibit. She uses photography to share her journey and inspire hope.

“It was taken in between chemotherapy and radiation,” continues Ingram. “I felt a lot of peace sitting in those chairs.” She hopes that other patients can feel that same peace she felt when they see her photograph.

The newly added art is what patients and their loved ones call a much needed change.

“It’s bright, it’s happy, it’s colorful,” shares Sarah Halligan, a current patient at the Yuma Regional Medical Cancer Center. “The heart with the peace love on it just kind of makes you feel like you’re okay. You’re gonna be okay. People are out there and they care about you and they’re praying for you.”

“Right above every chair was a beautiful peace of art,” explains artist and nurse Charlen Williamson, whose mother is fighting lymphoma. “It just seemed like they had taken the time to make that area special.”

The center had received hundreds or art submissions, and it was the patients, not the hospital, who ultimately decided which pieces would be on display at the exhibit. All of the artists hoped that their art would allow patients a brief, but happy, escape.

“You may look at a cloud and see different things, and I look at a cloud and make up stories in my head,” shares Holly Hendrick, one of the artists. “It just provides the people who might be under stressful situations a mini vaca(tion).”

“My hope is that others feel that when they sit here and look at it,” explains Ingram as she speaks about her photograph. “That the feel they same peace that I felt when I sat there.”

The exhibit is now open to the public, and the Yuma Regional Medical Center invites the community to visit and learn about the art and stories.